Bronze turtles in Central Borneo
Tom Harrisson’s 1965 short note documents two small bronze turtle figurines collected from the Kayan area above Belaga in interior Sarawak, arguing that they represent a localised, specialised branch of Bornean bronze-casting tradition rather than direct imports from the Dongson culture. The piece situates these objects within a broader cult of bronze among Borneo highland peoples and connects them to the Maloh, a historically stable smithing group in the Kapuas headwaters.
Summary
Harrisson’s note is prompted by the earlier acquisition of the Imun Ajo figurine, a bronze figure crowned with a Rhinoceros Hornbill — a species absent from the Asian mainland — which he had already published in Artibus Asiae (1964). That find crystallised his growing conviction that Bornean bronzes, while presumably related to Dongson, are specialised local productions. The two turtle toggles described here come from the same Kayan area above Belaga in the far headwaters of the Baloi branch of the Rejang River, and from the Batang Kayan in Kalimantan. By Kayan genealogies, the “bronze cult” dates to the early origins of the race, and the typology of the objects suggests an age of many centuries, though the present stock likely represents only a fraction that survived wars, massacres, mass migrations, and epidemics in proto-historical times.
The two surviving examples are described in detail: the larger (60 mm across, 47 mm to the neck) has a flat body, an S-curved upper jaw with a cobra-like protrusion, and a gaping open mouth; the smaller (46 mm across, 44 mm to the neck) lacks the beak but has more elaborate curvilinear limb treatment and a distinctive collar sweeping in a snake curve on the nape. Both carry a central toggle-hole. Harrisson stresses that the non-turtlean head treatment mirrors what Kayan and Kenyah wood-carvers do today — the “turtle” is a Kayan term, not a zoological one, and the overall form is turtle-like in impact despite the hornbill-spiral head. A recorded Kayan dream narrative, in which a river-turtle transforms into brass and becomes a protective female spirit, illustrates the local belief system surrounding these objects.
Harrisson then widens the argument. The turtle toggle connects to the turtle grade found among the sohun ranks in the mamat man’s society of the Kenyahs. More broadly, he points to the 1964 discovery of a socketed bronze ceilt and a cire perdue cast for a bronze gauge in stratified cave deposits on the Segama River, Sabah — the first in situ bronze-tool find for Indonesia or Malaysia — as powerful evidence of local or at least regional manufacture. He closes with the Maloh (Embaloh), a group of at least 30,000 in the Kapuas headwaters who, until Confrontation, roamed Borneo as smiths and whose traditions, genealogies, and domestic stability suggest an ancient brass-bronze craft tradition extending back at least seven centuries.
Key Findings
- The larger turtle toggle measures 60 mm across at its widest, 47 mm to the neck, 7–9 mm thick in the body, with a head 18 mm high at the crown and a “beak” curving up 25 mm from the back of the head (p. 256).
- The smaller turtle toggle measures 46 mm across, 44 mm to the neck (including a 4 mm upcurved tail), up to 6 mm thick, with a head only 10 mm high and 14 mm long (p. 257).
- A third, superior example (60 mm long, 30 mm nose-curve) belonged to Tama Basa, brother of Kayan chief Tama Bulan, and was lost during a Confrontation border battle near Long Jawi in early 1964 (p. 256).
- The first in situ bronze-tool find for Indonesia or Malaysia — a socketed bronze ceilt and a cire perdue cast for a bronze gauge — was recovered from stratified cave deposits on the Segama River, Sabah, by a Sarawak Museum–Sabah government team in September 1964 (p. 259).
- The Maloh (Embaloh) number at least 30,000 in the Kapuas headwaters, Kalimantan, and have been resident there trading as smiths for at least seven centuries, probably much longer (p. 259).
- The smaller turtle toggle was found associated with a carved cross-section of Sambhur stag (rusa) antler, 60 mm in diameter, 9–10 mm thick, with four concentric incised rings suggesting a form of grade or personal identification (p. 257).
Conclusion
Harrisson’s definitive takeaway is that the accumulating evidence — the typological distinctiveness of Bornean bronzes, the in situ Segama cave find, and the Maloh smithing tradition — compels a reassessment of the supposed Dongson cultural domination in Southeast Asia, at least for the outer islands. Borneo possessed its own ancient bronze culture and craft, locally manufactured and deeply embedded in the social and spiritual life of highland peoples.
Context
- The note draws on Harrisson’s own fieldwork in the Belaga and Batang Kayan areas in 1964, his earlier Artibus Asiae publication on the Imun Ajo figurine, and the 1964 Segama River cave excavation conducted jointly by the Sarawak Museum and the Sabah government.
- The piece contributes to the historiography of Bornean metallurgy by challenging the then-prevailing Dongson-centric model and foregrounding indigenous Bornean bronze-casting traditions, a position Harrisson had been developing over two decades of publication.